Meeting of the Minds [Active/Closed]
Characters: Daniel Jackson, Aya Brea, Chao, The Doctor, Harry Dresden
Content: Five individuals come together to try and brainstorm the best theories that might explain where they all are and what was behind the events at the river crossing.
Location: 16th Precinct
Time of day: Early evening, day after the River Crossing attempt
Warnings: None.
( Invitations given in person lest their captors cared to spy... )
"If this place were a virtual reality," She continued, staring at the Doctor for a moment before looking at the rest that joined them. " A lot of the things we've noticed and they've done would make little sense. There has yet to be proof to suggest otherwise until now and even then, that's the only proof we have for that."
She shook her head and leaned back, her hands sliding along the arms of the comfy chair she found. "What would be the point of having a social experiment like this when there are plenty of other ways to get the same results. Everything they have done has been encouragement to try to leave, whether giving us barely enough food to dealing with hordes of monsters."
She could honestly think of other ways to get better results for psychological and social experiments, but decide it best to leave those to herself. You don't want to go creeping out those who invited you to come along.
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Yes, Harry occasionally thought before he spoke. If Murphy ever found out her entire perception of reality would probably crumble around her.
Speaking up finally, Harry said, "I agree with Chao. Frankly, if this is some sort of simulation, then there's a lot of flaws in it. Why let us discover so much, especially when we have evidence that so much of what we've found was not something they wanted us to find. I suppose we could be dealing with some seriously devious masterminds, to the point of being almost omniscient, but I'd prefer to save that possibility for later."
Leaning back Harry flipped through his notebook before focusing on two pages. "Besides, there is at least one other possibility. Now, Aya, Sora told me when you guys were in the tunnel, you ran into some people in gray suits, who then promptly ran into a room with no exit, and vanished, right? Furthermore, Negi told me he checked the wards around the Strand when I disappeared, and found they had not been set off, but at the same time there was a strange fluctuation to them. This would be the second time they've broken into my home. These instances seem to me to suggest that our friends have some sort of teleportation technology, which would make sense if they are the ones bringing us in from other worlds. Obviously this is based on some flimsy evidence, but it's a possibility to take into account."
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Daniel listened to the others speak, memorizing all of the information brought to the table. Now it was his turn.
"I think we can definitely rule out this being a virtual reality." Daniel spoke up, folding his hands on the table and looking at each person seriously. "Aya and I spoke some about this before, and from all we've seen and worked out, I think we can rule out any kind of actual virtual reality programming." Ticking off the reasons on his fingers, he explained. "Virtual realities rely on creatures and things that are a part of the program, and yet controlled from an outside source, the same as any computer program. If this were a virtual reality, then the crabs and Cloverfield monsters would be like code, controlled as a part of the overall program. But when we stormed Central Park and the castle, we found distinct evidence of the crabs being experimented on, and a device that MacGyver is positive is used to control the larger monsters. Then there are the people spotted in the subways," he continued, nodding to Harry's mention. "If this were a program, they certainly wouldn't need to enter it themselves to monitor the situation." Leaning back, he held his hands up for a moment in a sort of shrug and said, "If you all agree, I think we should eliminate that possibility - or at least put it on the back burner - and work on the other ideas we have."
The archeologist stared at his hands in thought for a moment. "I'm with Harry on this one. I think they must have some sort of advanced teleportation capabilities. The barrier around Manhattan could be designed to teleport anyone who gets to close in order to keep people from attempting to break through." Daniel paused, debating his next suggestion. Well, they were here to talk about all of the theories. Might as well put it out there.
"Another idea that someone suggested to me on the network is that this might actually be a sort of pocket dimension. I've had experience with people being pulled to and from dimensions and realities, and it MIGHT be possible that this entire city was somehow transported to a small new dimension. We've already confirmed that we're being pulled here from different realities, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. That could also explain the teleportation at the barrier - you reach the end of the dimension and it loops you back around to the other side.
"Again, this is only a theory, and possibly a very far-out one," he conceded. "But if that were true, then I'm wondering if people being drawn here from other realities is actually some sort of side affect. I mean..." He waved his hand at the members of the group for emphasis. "It does seem like people are brought here at random, doesn't it? People from countless different realities that have nothing in common arrive here every few weeks without regard for age, race, or gender - and more disappear again without explanation all the time. What if this interdimension kidnapping is some sort of side effect to the city being transported to that pocket dimsension? That would explain their interest in us, and why they keep taking people; whoever is behind this might not have expected that to happen and wants to know more about us to figure out what went wrong.
"If their intention was merely to turn the people of this Manhattan into those Clover monsters, then it's strange that they would purposefully allow people into this place who are the only ones that can heal the disease. Messing with dimensions and realities is incredibly tricky business from everything I've see, so it wouldn't surprise me if they got something wrong."
He finished and then waited to see what the others had to say. If they were able to debunk his theory, that would be fine with him; that was the point of this meeting, after all. Hopefully they were making progress.
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“That lab is perhaps the most convincing piece of evidence that the creatures, and by extension, this entire place, are in fact real,” he said, after listening to each of them speak in turn. “Excellent point, and I agree.” He mulled over that for a moment, trying to decide if he had anything to add. Which, naturally, he decided that he did.
“An alternate dimension or reality - a likely option at this point, though it still doesn’t quite answer the question of how whoever’s in charge is managing to control things. Like our missing days, for example. If they have teleportation technology that’s this advanced, then it isn’t out of the question that some form of technology could accomplish that little feat as well. But I’m not sure what form that could be, just yet.”
While the missing days probably weren’t, in themselves, the most important problem that they needed to solve, they were disconcerting in that they illustrated just how much control their captors had over them. Admittedly, the Doctor had a slight personal investment in uncovering how those time skips had been caused; waking up and discovering that you were missing a day, and not knowing where that time had gone, was not normal for him at all. His ability to sense the flow of time had been dramatically dampened since his arrival here, of course. Experiencing time and those missing days practically as a human would had been aggravating, to say the least.
Then he considered Daniel’s theory about pocket dimensions, as well as the possibility that kidnapping people was merely a side effect. “They very easily could’ve gotten something wrong,” the Doctor noted. “If they’ve been ‘messing with dimensions and realities,’ as you put it, then they’re lucky if the walls between realities haven’t begun to break down. I’ve seen that happen before, at least. That could even be one possible explanation for why so many different people have been brought here from so many different worlds, although I won’t even begin to presume that it is, as there are so many possible explanations that we haven’t even theorized about yet.”
At that, he gave a slight half-smile. “That’s what we’re here to try to figure out, though. Which is stating the obvious, but, well.” He fell silent again and leaned back, his chin in his hand, waiting to hear what the others were thinking about Daniel’s theories before saying anything more himself.
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